If in doubt, do nothing
Published: Fri, 01/09/15
Short one today since I have a huge amount of planning to do at the moment. Stand by for fully updated website on Monday.
Decision making? How do you decide what to do? Especially when under pressure such as in a self-defence situation? It may seem counter intuitive but the only sensible response is do not do anything until you are sure what to do. Being sure comes from your intuition not from your mind. I emphasise this principle when practicing a Jarl drill. The instruction being: Keep relaxed, don’t look at the attacker, think of something else altogether and let your body/subconscious mind/intuition decide when to move. I also have to advise a great deal of caution when practising this principle as it is very powerful if you can get your mind to switch off and just let it happen. As far as I recall I have only hurt anyone once (slightly) training this principle and I will tell you about that on Monday (it is quite a funny story).
We will certainly be working with this principle tomorrow at the self-defence seminar in Crewkerne.
Is this a spiritual aspect of martial arts? It is certainly about calming the conscious mind (particularly the ego), accessing the intuition and trusting your body to do the right thing. The principle applies in all aspects of life of course, true martial arts training is about mastering the self not defeating others.
Details of tomorrow’s course here http://www.somersetstav.co.uk/stavcourses.html and a full programme to August available Monday.
If I don’t see you tomorrow have a great weekend.
regards
Graham